Sunday, July 22, 2012

Not Zen 15: Failure

A reporter went to interview a man who was widely known to be successful in multiple disciplines - as a banker, as a philosophy teacher, and as a painter.

"Were you talented in school?" the reporter asked him.

"No. I showed no talent."

The reporter crossed our her next prepared question. After resting a moment with her pencil against her chin, she skipped halfway down her list.

"If you weren't talented ..." she asked, "... how did you get into college?"

"I was rejected every time. I couldn't get admitted in the usual way, so I took a menial job at a university. As part of the job, they offered me free classes. I took them and learned what I could."

"Did you get your degree in art? Or in finance?"

"I got a degree in philosophy."

"That's pretty widely regarded as useless. How did you become successful at banking?"

"At first, I was a terrible failure. You're right that I wasn't prepared. I didn't understand banks. But from my failures, I learned. Soon, I was a good assistant manager. And because I was young, I thought I could start my own bank."

"And you did!"

"Yes. Now I've applied the same lessons to painting, which is apparently why you are here. As I said, I showed no talent as an artist. I made many bad paintings at first."

"If that's true, why did you keep on painting?"

"Art is easier than banking. You can make mistakes and still produce a worthwhile picture. I took pleasure in being allowed to do things the wrong way. I had fun with mistakes. That's why I became a better artist."

"What about this one?" The reporter turned to the wall of the studio. She pointed to a ink drawing of an apple. "It's perfect. No mistakes. All the lines are exactly right."

"That one started out as a picture of an orange." The philosopher shook his head. "Only when I realized that it had gone wrong did I add some reflections and a stem."

"Are you serious?"

"The only real mistakes we make, I now believe, are in not profiting from our earlier mistakes."

About Me

When I was eight, I sat down in my father's library, got out a book called 'Zen Flesh, Zen Bones' by Paul Reps and read it. When I was nine, I read it again. When I was ten, my father caught me laughing as I flipped to my favorite stories. He questioned me at length - irritated at first but then pleased that I'd moved on to other translations of Buddhist and Zen Buddhist texts by Alan Watts. He said he'd rather I stuck to classical Greek philosophers and so he tried to lure me over to Herodotus. That might have worked if there were any works of note left of the pre-Socratic philosophers. As it was, the Zen and Daoist texts proved superior.

Why Not Zen?

In some ways, I grew up with Eastern philosophies but in most ways I'm traditionally Western. I don't think Zen has gotten it all right or is even the best form of Buddhism. I don't agree with anyone entirely. I haven't received transmission from any religious figure except maybe from everyone, all the time, and only occasionally with intention.